Frisco residents furious with Exide clean-up plan

FRISCO — Exide Technology’s lead smelters may have cooled, but tempers haven’t.

Neighbors of the recently-closed Frisco facility are furious with a plan to have Exide remove hazardous waste from the property… clean it… then dump it right back in their city.

That resulted in another heated dialog Wednesday night at the company’s second public meeting to discuss plans to demolish the plant while keeping a close watch on air quality.

Consultants discussed plans to remove, re-treat, and sample the waste.

“We’re trying to focus on the immediate… what’s going to happen soon?” asked one Exide representative.

But residents like Meghan Green are fed up. In her view, there is only one option for the landfills in Frisco: “Removed. We want them out of here. Landfills in Frisco are not an option,” she said.

Exide also addressed plans to control the dust created by demolition with increased misting and using more water trucks. That issue was also brought up by the EPA in a letter sent late in January questioning proposed practices.

“Are you incorporating the suggestions into the plans?” asked one critic.

“TCEQ [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] is the lead agency, and I’m sure they will present that to the EPA,” answered an Exide representative.

The battery recycler shut down operations on November 30 last year. Environmental concerns surrounding hazardous levels of lead and cadmium have residents outraged.

The exchange between residents was highly charged, as expected.

“You’re going to do this sampling and that sampling… what about things you buried years back?” asked one resident.

An Exide spokeswoman told News 8 that demolition of the site is expected to start in mid-February, and end sometime in March.

As for the landfill, Exide has 4,000 cubic yards of waste to treat; a timeline that will exceed two months.